


Paper Anniversary

by DaisyofGalaxy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyofGalaxy/pseuds/DaisyofGalaxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara and the Doctor celebrate their first anniversary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of ideas put into one bigger one-shot. Hope you'll enjoy. A suplement can be found on my tumblr https://daisyofgalaxy11.tumblr.com/post/149788676475

 

It is an evening like every other. The lights in the console room lose their intensity to reflect the changes occurring in the very same moment in a distant parts of the Universe. Somewhere far from here, the dark clouds consume skies while cicadas start their nightly concert on thin stalks of grass. Someplace, a squeal of swallows mingles with the sound of wind as the birds slide across the sky to their tiny nests. Somewhere, the world is about to fall asleep, but not here.

It is an evening like every other but not quite. At midnight, it will be exactly 365 days. Entire years since they are together again. And it wasn’t any year. There are rings on their fingers to remind them about the promise that was made that day.

He turns the engine off and leaves the console for a while. It’s his and Clara’s cuddle time. The name was solely her idea and had little to do with the actual proceedings. At least in some cases since Clara’s hands always find a way to him.

It’s a remnant of her sleeping pattern he likes to think. Or simply a few hours a day when they slow down and contemplate in each other’s company.

He steps down the narrow corridors and stops before a pair bright red doors. They’re open and reveal the bedroom hidden within.

Seeing them brings to mind their first night together -the first one after the reunion. That night they laid in the very same room, her hand in his. He remembers the battle he fought with himself trying not to drop off. He was burning up, wasted by a nearly fatal brain infection but the fear the body next to him might disappear was stronger.

She insisted on making it their bedroom. It was supposed to bring them luck. Sort of, it did. They spent almost a year together. Without one intergalactic crisis. Without bigger arguments between them even.

The room doesn’t resemble the one they slept in that night. Chillness of the walls doesn’t haunt him anymore. Their greyness is covered with paintings and a thick layer of wallpaper. And there is furniture now.

The only thing that remains the same is the bed. It underwent a massive renovation though, and is hard to recognise from beneath a pile of cushions.

He leans back on the doorframe and gawks at her movements, grinning. She’s exactly how he likes her most: in her nightdress, running her hand through her wet hair as she reads in bed.  Someone once told him everything gets boring with time. She proves how wrong that person was. He had 365 days to get used to her presence, but he still doesn’t have enough. He can never have, he catches himself often.

“Hello,” he mumbles when he’s finally ready to keep his eyes under control. She lifts hers and smiles at him. “What are you reading?” he sits on the edge of the bed and asks.

She passes him one of the sheets she holds in her fingers. There is many more. There are hundreds on them, spread on the bed and floor, resting on the bedside table. “Your letters to me,” she replies with a smile.

He takes a yellow sheet from her hand and peeks. “I don’t recall writing any.”

He remembered. He wrote them on Trenzalore when he started to believe he would never see her again. Certainty she would never read them gave him the courage to start. He wrote seldom at first. Then writing letters to her became the thing with which he started and ended each day.

He wanted to give her something meaningful for their first anniversary so he left them in sight. All of them. Without exceptions. Exactly 353 letters tied with a red ribbon. He isn’t sure it was a good idea anymore. Some of the letters he wrote are decent, others not so much. Their content makes him blush as he sees them in her hands.

Seeing him so shy, she leans in and brings her lips to his cheek. “I think they’re lovely. Thank you,” she reassures him and lets her know he appreciates the effort.

He smiles back and crawls across the bed to rest next to her. She lifts up one of his arms and slips into his embrace. “Can you read some of them to me, please?”

He bows his head a little and breathes in the sweet scent of coconut shampoo she used not so long ago. “Did someone forget how to read herself?” he chuckles and reads silently the first few lines. It’s the first one he wrote after he sent her home. A monologue about importance of keeping her safe.

“Sorry, won’t handle this level of soppiness. This is exactly what happens when one doesn’t have much to do,” he whines and takes another. “It was actually a lovely day-“he starts but can’t hold the laugher. “There are two Ls in the word actually,” he tries to smarts off while her elbow punches him lightly in the chest.

“Can you please stop clowning around? This is serious,” she berates him.

He folds the thin paper and puts it back with the others. “You know I don’t need to read them to know what they are about, don’t you?”

“I know,” she nods with a note of sadness in her voice. “I wish I could have been there with you. Reading them makes me angry. You thought you were going to die. It must have been terrible- knowing your fate and agreeing to it. You needed a friend. Someone to talk to, but there was no one beside you. And I didn’t help you later either. I judged and criticised while you did your best to survive. You suffered from PTSD and I didn’t realise that. What kind of friend does it make me?”

“A good one. And I hadn’t. I was just tired.”

“Yes you had. I suspected so, but this-“she says pointing at the letter in her hand. “This is the proof I was right. I know how it is when you feel you won’t make it, Doctor. I was in the same position once. I remember how it was paralysing me, killing almost. Still I can’t imagine how hard it must be to live so many years with such premonition.”

“This is so very you – picking holes in everything. I just wanted to do something nice but here we are, talking about stuff that happened forever ago. For the record, I was fine and sort of you were with me. I could write to you,” he answers. “It wasn’t a nice time, I don’t deny it. I couldn’t sleep for years after it ended. But I’m alright again so why dig further? Today these letters remind me about one thing only.”

She looks straight at him. Her brown eyes as always pervade his soul. “About what exactly?”

“How much everything has changed for better.”

“How so?”

“That day when we arrived the truth field made you say something. Something quite important. The man who wrote these letters spent eight centuries trying to cope with the fact he can never reciprocate it. Well, he could but he realised that no matter how much you had tried, the relationship would be doomed to fail anyways.”

“So he decided to cut me loose and watch me walk away with another man?” Clara hums and gives him a mischievous smile.

He nods and smiles sadly. The thought that everything they built might have never happened if Danny Pink wasn’t hit by a car chills his blood. If the other man lived, she would be a casual inhabitant of 21st century London, living with her husband and kids in a tiny brick house. And he would never learn how much he had lost.

He squeezes her tighter in his arms and brings his lips to her ear. “I would never let that happen,” he whispers. ”Never.”

“Most of couples lose their bond because they don’t try enough. I’m just glad we’re not doomed more than everyone else. We still can mess things up, but if so, it will be totally our fault,” he adds.

Without a word, she rises and makes herself comfortable on his lap. She remains still for a moment, only glancing. “Just try to mess it up,” she says with a grin and she crushes her lips to his in a fervent kiss. A kind born from desperation and longing and, but mostly compassion.

He brings his hands to her waist and presses her harder to him. Strands of her wet hair tickle his cheeks as her lips massage his, but he tries to focus on the sensation of her tongue on his, particularly since she tastes like waffles and caramel tonight. “I don’t know. There are so many distractions. What if I do mess it up?” he replies merrily.

He lets his finger wander up and down her frame, dishevelling her nightdress. She shivers under his touch but doesn’t do anything to break the contact. Instead, she reaches for the hem of her nightie, tugs it above her head and tosses on the floor. She’s completely naked underneath, he realises.

The view messes with his brain in the most artful way. He knows what she wants from him. She was giving directions from sometime on. Nonetheless, this is new. It’s direct, almost outspoken. 

There is nothing he wants more than to place his fingertips on her curves, run them over her shapely breast and watch how the look on her face changes under his touch. Yet he knows he shouldn’t and she notices his hesitation.

“Do you really need to do this? Every time I suggest it, you act like if you were asked to do a shift in a Dalek’s mine.” She says sharply. He looks her in the eyes and sees nothing but sadness. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“You’re perfect,” he whispers but she’s not eager to comply.

“Am I?” she asks again and the chagrin with which she does it hurts. He can stand his own wounds, but hers? They reduce him to tears, make him ache to do something, yet in most cases he has no idea what. Like if there was a solution he once knew and forgot but a trace of it is still there and it itches.

He knows she’s right. It’s been entire year and they still haven’t consummated their relationship. She is more than right. He owes her at least a good explanation.

If only it was that easy. If he could just let it go and see what happens next.

He isn’t sure he can trust himself. Would he be able to make the grade, respect the line her altered body drew some time ago, and what if he doesn’t? He’s not eager to try.

“There were women before me and if I’m right you did it in this body with River already, so it’s not that you can’t. Why should I believe it’s not my fault?”

“Because it’s not,” he murmurs.

“I’m not so sure. I think you don’t want-“

“I’m just scared you may not be satisfied with what you’ll get,” he admits at last but the clouds hanging above him don’t vanish. Now, he’s terrified to know her opinion.

“If you haven’t put it all together yet, I’m a bit different.”

“That’s what I mean. What’s the point of going further if you can’t enjoy it? It’s never going to be as good as it should be. And there are so many things we can do together. We lived without it before so we can survive now too. What difference does it make if we just skip it?” he whinges and she only shakes her head.

“It makes all the difference to me,” she replies firmly, staring at him with her coal-black eyes. “I love you and _this_ is what people need when they love somebody.”

Slowly he begins to see more clearly. _Cupid and Psyche_ , _Ars Amatoria_ and oriental rules of lovemaking. This planet is soaked in it, gives physical intimacy an almost paramount value and Clara is for sure her mother’s daughter.

Spellbound and pole-axed, he pauses for a moment. Maybe they could make it work? Maybe he’s changing a fly into an elephant? It’s just physiology. He knows the drill, doesn’t he?

Eyes fixed on hers, he moves his finger to her chin and begs for another kiss. She succumbs to his touch without a fight, parts her lips for him and lets him taste her. Her tongue clashes against his every now and then. She seems so lost and unprepared, almost gauche. But what else can she feel when his intentions are ambiguous?

With one swift move, he turns around and buries her beneath him. A whimper escapes her as he ends the kiss, but seeing he does so only to get rid of his clothes halts her protest. For the first time, he sees a flaw of wearing many layers. What could take only seconds, takes him ages. Even worse, it turns out that pulling four layers of t-shirts and jumpers at a stroke doesn’t work. He pants and fidgets, fights for his life almost, while Clara does nothing but chuckles. 

“Too many layers, owlet?” At last, she lifts herself up to help him. He takes a good glance at her once he’s free again. She appears excited, maybe even wants to say something but words never leave her lips.

Finally, he lays down with her. They lay on their sides, face to face, totally bare, sinking in a dim light and embarrassment. It’s cold and weird, but she’s far from complaining and he’s happy to do the same, tries to focus on her lovely face instead. It’s not a tough task. He could do that until the end of the time. And if he’s lucky maybe he will get a chance.

“Everything’s alright?” he hears her ask.  Before he has time to respond, her hand finds its way to his cheek, strokes it gently as if she tried to comfort him. “No pressure tonight, okay?” she offers and he nods.

Having his approval, her fingertips begin to migrate. There is intentness etched on her face as they skim over his skin. They’re at his face, then briefly at his neck and finally at his chest and belly. She’s teasing him until they reach the line of his pubic hair. She stops there, puts her hand back on his face and starts the exercise again, only this time it’s his back that interests her.

He follows her silently and places his own hands at the same spots on her body, witnesses as her breaths become out of step when he touches her armpit or ghosts over her buttocks. “Is there some special meaning behind _this_?” he whispers and she giggles lightly.

“Maybe. How does my skin feels?” she asks him.

“It’s warm and lithe. A bit like satin. Why?”

“Nothing important,” she replies and brushes her lips with his in a long kiss.

Not knowing when, the awkwardness subsides. He pulls her close and locks their lips together, but the kiss doesn’t last long.

He climbs on top of her and wanders off a little, breathes in the sylphlike scent of her body and marks her with a trail of kisses. She’s so inviting and hot, it almost burns. He tries to be slow, often stops for a second or two, counts to ten and comes back to the task. She can spot his sloppiness and haste and he tries to keep that in mind.

Every now and then, he returns, drinks from her mouth and lets her lips touch his skin in exchange for his caresses.

 “How could you think I don’t want you?” He poises his head and asks, and she purrs his answers.

Their actions aren’t in vain. He feels his blood rush through his body, warms up the parts of it he forgot about centuries ago. She notices it too and grabs him. Her hot palm around his length is more than he can take, tempts him and makes him conjecture how it would feel to join with her. Even with her biology, it would be still magnificent. Her narrow, silky walls would embosom him, force him to cry her name before he knows.

Everything is so blissful and exhilarating, yet it makes him tremble. But this she can’t see. She’s way too lost, focused on buttoning everything up.

He’s like a sacrificial lamb, anointed with exotic oils, with a song of terror on his tongue. “We don’t have to. I don’t need this,” he rasps but she doesn’t obey, only seals his lips with another kiss.

Puffing and as she ordered, he positions himself at her entrance and glances at her again, almost pleading her to let it go. She’s far from it, wraps her legs tightly around his waist and doesn’t allow him to draw back.

Still hesitating, he buries his tip in her. He doesn’t have time to even properly feel her when he has to withdraw, startled with a loud gasp leaving her.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, her arms pull him closer to her. “Let’s try again,” she demands and leaves a kiss to his temple.

 

She feels him try again, hears a deep groan that escapes him as he slowly samples her. His thrusts are weak and timid, but definitely there.

“Can you please stop doing this?” he snaps after few strokes.

“You mean what?”

“The thing with your muscles. I can hardly move when you’re doing it,” he replies shortly. Not a fan of Kegel exercise then.

She readjusts herself around him and right away his movements get a bit livelier. He’s still quiet however and doesn’t dare to even look at her. The only evidence of pleasure building up in him are his gradually shallowing breaths.

She remains still with his face wedged in the crook of her neck and awaits his invitation. A gentle brush of his mind on hers. It would be useful now to allow her to participate, even briefly.

Sometimes it takes a while before he manages to form a link between them, other times it happens straight away. Maybe it’s not a coincidence at all, it crosses her mind. Maybe he finds it hard to trust, to open before her enough to let it happen at times. “You’re doing great,” she whispers to his ear, hopeful it would help him relax.

She waits for him, longs almost. It’s better than anything - being able to see with his eyes, feel the love he has for her inside him, and learn for herself what’s in the shadows. He isn’t able to hide from her when she’s there. His entire presence pours into her unrestrained and raw, and leaves beautiful memories.

If only she could do the same. His mind can connect with hers, but not the other way around. She still is a mystery to him. Her thoughts are for her use only.

It’s unfair. More to her than him, she often concludes sadly. There are so many things she wants to say and which don’t have a name. She can’t tell them, but maybe she could show him.

And then it happens- a funny dizziness that quickly grows in size. She closes her eyes but sees still. A vivid picture arises before her closed eyelids. It’s a rather abstract one. It’s her own face, task-focused and a bit thoughtful.

The image blackens moments later, right when she decides to look at him. Still not brave enough to face her then, she whispers under her breath.

She closes her eyes again and sees only darkness. Nonetheless, other senses work better when one of them is eliminated and so does the mind, it seems. She hears as he speaks. His words are short and repetitive, consist of her name and few words she can’t understand. She can’t understand but still she knows their meaning. It’s an universal one.

She swears she hears as he says them to her, but maybe he is speaking inside her head? Can she tell the difference now when the world around blurs?

And she feel it again. Warmth. Joy inside him. His most beautiful laughter. His gratitude and sweet promises everything is going to be alright.

As he sets the rhythm, the bond becomes stronger. She doesn’t read in his thoughts anymore. They sink under a flood of arousal coming from him. She’s inebriated, digs her fingertips deeper in his sweaty back and tries to distract herself from the overwhelming heat growing deep within her. It’s not a real one, yet it feels so realistic. Almost true.

He seems at ease now, crushes her hand under his and doesn’t bother to bite back his moans anymore. He can be quite audible in similar situations, she finds out, but it’s good not to be the only raving person in the room.

She decides to help a little, rocks her hips gently to meet his and invites him deeper. To her surprise, he doesn’t reject her. He puts his other hand under her pelvis and lifts her up. “Is that okay?” he asks her shyly before he starts to move again, this time much more forcibly.

It doesn’t take much longer before his thrusts become frenzied. Then they stop for good and he empties himself inside her.

She stops along with him, tastes the pleasant wave that today cascades from her head and not core, can’t contain herself when her silly muscles are taken in and pulsate like mad around him.

He peeks at her while it happens, visibly jubilant and excited with the new discovery.  “Was this-?” he blurts but doesn’t wait for her answer, only places a soft kiss to her forehead.

Once the spasm diminish, he pulls away, rests his sweaty head on her belly and leaves little kisses on her skin. His eyes don’t leave hers, glancing at her as if she was the most precious thing in the Universe.

“Maybe it wasn’t that bad at all,” he says, smiling sheepishly.

“Told you. Do you want to try it again later?” she offers and makes the grin on his face double its size. It was more than good. It was exactly how it should be.

Somehow, the Universe has mercy on them. It didn’t steal everything, now even gives them a chance to save that part of their lives too. There is one thing it targeted, though. One she cherished most.

If only she knew it back then, she would not ease off. She should have nudged him until he finally complies. A picture of a little boy with chocolate eyes and mock of curly, blonde hair arises before her eyes. He could have been _theirs_. If only they were bolder back then.

“Bad news,” she hears him laugh after a moment. He’s still gasping for air as he shows her tattered piece of the paper. “Looks like this letter didn’t make it.”

She smiles too and gestures him to lie down beside her. He uses the invitation and soon they are in each other’s arms again, buried beneath a thick layer of blanket. The dream about motherhood gradually slips away. “But you’re going to write it again, right?” she asks.

“I will,” he yawns and closes his eyes. “And then we’ll go everywhere from the list. There are twenty items, so better be ready,” he reminds her like tenth time today. He must be really proud of his choice.

She has never suspected it would be this way, but from the two of them he’s the sentimental one. He is even more than this when he gathers pebbles from every place they visit, labels them and puts in a designated place in the Tardis.

She leans in and brushes her lips to his, tries to bring him back to reality a little. “First unwrap my gift. Although, it’s not even half as good as yours.”

“Please, tell me it’s not another book,” he chuckles. His eyes are still closed, a vast grin creeps through his face as he speaks.

“It’s not a regular book.”

“So it’s a book. You admit that,” he starts again and she snorts. “Good night,” he wishes her after a while. His features get less tense with every second.

Silently, she makes herself comfortable beside him. With her head pressed to the pillow, she watches as his mind sails to the port hers will never see again. He’s nearby, yet miles away, separated from her by a barrier she can’t cross. Although, he’ll be back again soon, ready to make her sigh and laugh again.

She looks at the clock by his side of the bed and spots it is five past midnight. So it really was an entire year, it occurs to her for the first time. Until now her mind didn’t allow her to even dream about it, certain something bad would happen if she did. Like if her happiness could bring misery.

There is 365 new days to fill, but it all can wait for now.

It is an evening like every other.

Somewhere, the world is about to fall asleep.


End file.
